Old Days
by FailureToLunch
Summary: Ever wondered what the TF2 mercenaries did before the war? Step inside and take a look...
1. Intro

_**Mission begins in 30 seconds.**_

_Helen leaned back in her swivel chair and glanced over the monitors that displayed the different areas of the canyon battlefield simply known as Dustbowl. At the first control point, there was the RED Engineer, upgrading his dispenser to a Lvl 2 while keeping a close eye on his sentry._

_At the entrance to the BLU spawn, some of the BLU mercenaries were taunting at the REDs, who were doing likewise. She grimaced as she saw the BLU Demoman lift up his lower body armour and do a pelvic thrust, showing a smiley face taped to his crotch. She sighed in frustration at the RED Soldier, as he started to juggle his grenades around as if they were rubber balls and he was a circus clown._

_Knowing she had to start the battle before some fool blew themselves up, she grabbed the microphone once more and brought it to her lips._

"_**Mission begins in 5."**_

"_**4."**_

"_**3."**_

"_**2."**_

"_**1."**_

_The alarm blared, and she looked on with glee as the mercenaries started their bloody battle. As the BLUs came running out, shouting their battle cries and firing off various weapons, she noticed the one leading the group: the Scout, a young merc who looked no more than 19 at most, firing off pistol shots one after another at the opposing team, all the while maneuvering towards the first control point. She wondered where he had gotten such incredible speed, such agility. _

"_Mistress?"_

"_Yes, Pauling," the tall, slim woman answered as she put a cigarette to her lips, "what is it?"_

"_I've brought those files you requested earlier."_

"_All nine files?"_

"_Yes." _

"_Perfect."_

_She held out a hand and felt the documents slide into her hands. "Thank you, Miss Pauling. That will be all." The young intern nodded and exited the control room. "Now," she exclaimed, sliding a couple of pages out, "let's see what we can find out about you, Bostonian."_


	2. Scout (Part 1)

It was a warm summer morning in Boston. The sun was slowly ascending up into the blue sky, illuminating the street below. The sunlight rested on the long line of several shops and businesses: a barber shop here, a movie theatre there and numerous cafés. There were very few people around, mostly consisting of men and women who had early morning jobs, with some average early birds around. Most people weren't even out of bed yet.

If someone across the street were to look to the other side, they might have seen a young teenager, weaving his way past all the other residents of Boston as he sprinted down the sidewalk. Nothing about this boy was particularly interesting. He had a short buzz cut, with a plain blue shirt on and black shorts coming down just over his knees. But he had a sense of urgency about him, one that was also slightly frustrated.

He accidently bumped into someone and fell over. Getting back up, he didn't bother to apologise, instead just hurrying on and ignoring the angry shouts that followed him. He didn't care. He was going to make it this time, he was sure of it. _I'm gonna make it, _he thought to himself, _and I ain't letting any hard-ass in a suit stop me. _He turned off into an alleyway and pulled himself through a hole in a wire fence, his face red hot and breathing heavily.

He rounded the corner and his hopes fell as he saw that, once again, he was too late. The fight was already over. Older teens in jackets and football jerseys were getting up off the ground, nursing bruises and broken limbs as the pile of beaten bodies started to dwindle. Some guys had to be dragged or carried off by their friends, while others had no friends to help them, so they just limped off. As they shuffled past him, he glared with jealously at some of them. Why couldn't he get those injuries? He wanted some bruises as well, maybe even a skull fracture. But that'd never happen, thanks to his brothers.

_Where are they anyway? _He thought to himself, and as if that very thought had summoned them, there they were, his seven older siblings, complete with bleeding noses and at least two spinal injuries. "Oh, there you are, runt. Too bad you missed the fight." This came from the second oldest, George, who was cradling his left arm. "Doesn't matter though. You miss all of them." This earned a round of laughter from the other brothers, followed by a round of coughing and grunts of pain as their bodies reminded them of their condition.

"Don't call me runt, a'right? My nickname is Scout. Got it? Scout!"

"Yeah, yeah, it was just a joke, get over it." George exclaimed, and winched in agony at his arm. "We should get back onto the street." The eight climbed through the wired fence and came out onto the street. Almost as soon as the last person was through, they started to argue about what to do next.

"I'm telling ya, Harv, we should go to the dance club!"

"No way, Joey. You only go there during the night, when it's dark! I say we should hang out at the mall!"

"You two serious? I'm thinking we head to the new Mann Co. Store just opened a few blocks down!"

As usual, they ended up deciding on the Hatté Café. Scout was about to follow when he noticed something in the window of a sports shop: a brand new, authentic aluminium baseball bat.


	3. Scout (Part 2)

"Hi, Ma!" Scout called as he opened the front door of his house. In response to his call, a head with a face like his but more feminine and a bob hairstyle looked around the kitchen doorway. She smiled when she saw him and said "Oh, hi, sweetie! Where are your brothers?"

"Uh…" Scout stammered as he tried to think of a good reason. He couldn't tell her they had been fighting again. They said the next time he did that, he wouldn't see the light of day for at least two weeks. "They, uh… they're playing baseball out on the field."

"Oh, that so?" she asked, and went back to work on making breakfast. Safely assuming the conversation was over, Scout went over to the fridge and took a look inside. "Hey Ma, is it alright if I have a Bonk?" he asked, pulling out a soft drink labelled 'Bonk! Blutonium Berry".

"Of course, honey-" "Sweet! Thanks, Ma!" he said as he closed the door and began to open the tab. However, he stopped when he found his mother standing in front of him. "You can have one once you tell me what the boys were up to."

"But Ma, I told you, they-" he stopped short as his mother's unconvinced frown descended upon him. "They weren't- I mean- they was- what I'm sayin' is-" He looked up and once again met with his mother's frown, and knew that there was no point in trying to change her mind. "They were fighting again, weren't they?" she asked him.

Scout looked at her for a bit, then slowly nodded. At this, she gave a cry of frustration and sank down into a chair. "Why don't those boys listen to me? I told them not to go out fighting anymore!" She slumped into her chair and buried her face in her hands, as she emitted small sobs. Scout feltso bad for, that he almost didn't have the heart to ask her about the bat.

But he did anyway.

"What? Why do you want it?"

"Oh, um… I thought it would help me with my battin'."

"Hmm. Guess ol' Sandman just *sniff* isn't doing the job, huh?"

Scout sighed as he looked over to the living room. There, in a trophy case that his mom had bought for him on his 10th birthday, lay his most prized possession, the Sandman bat. It was a classic wooden bat, and he had loved it from the first day he saw it. When he was playing baseball with his team, he didn't use any of the other bats, just Sandman.

Unfortunately, in recent years, it had hit so many balls that the top started to split. He taped it back together with black duct tape, but he didn't want to risk destroying it. So he stuck it in the trophy case, vowing never to allow his favourite bat to be destroyed.

He looked away, and looked back to his mother, who was drying her tears. He reminded himself that she had bigger problems, with her eight sons to take care of and no husband to support her.

Thinking of this reminded him of something he had wanted to ask her for a while, but that he had never gotten around to. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to his mother. "Ma…" he began, "what happened to Dad?"

She looked up and stared at him, with a surprised look in her eyes. "Why do you want to know?" she asked him as he shifted uncomfortably.

"Just… y'know, I wanna know what happened. Why he isn't around anymore. Did he… die?"

She dried the rest of her tears and stood up, then told him "Follow me." Uncertainly, Scout got up and followed her. She led him into her bedroom, which had a double bed and a wardrobe in the corner. Everything else in the room had something to do with cosmetics, so he mostly paid attention to the bed and wardrobe. However, this time he couldn't, as his mother was heading towards the mirror cabinet. She proceeded to open some drawers, searching for something, but not urgently.

Finally she found what she was looking for in the bottom cabinet. She pulled out a yellow envelope with the word 'Paris' written on it in fancy cursive and closed the drawer. She stared at the bulky envelope for a while, and it seemed like hours before anyone spoke, as the memories within that envelope came flooding back.

"So," Scout began, breaking the silence, "what's in there?"

Broken out of her daze, his mother turned to look at him and held out the envelope. "This contains pictures of my trip to Paris, fifteen years ago. I had divorced from my first husband, having just had my seventh child-"

"What?!" Scout exclaimed, almost dropping the envelope as she handed it to him. He was the eighth child, and the second youngest was almost three years older than him. "Yes," she responded, "you weren't born to John."

"But... how?" Scout and his brothers had long heard stories from their mother about their father, John Basil. But now it seemed that he was not really his father. "I mean, what the freak? How was I born then? You didn't marry twice or nothin'!"

"No," she confirmed, "but I did meet someone."

She motioned to the envelope, and Scout, realising he hadn't opened it, practically tore it open, desperate to know the identity of his true father.

He pulled out the first envelope he saw and came out with a picture of a beautiful French sunset in Paris, with the word 'Paris', once more written in cursive, residing in the corner. In the picture, there were two smiling people, a man and a woman, standing side by side. The woman Scout recognised as a younger version of his mother, but the man he did not recognise.

He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt, covered by a pinstriped red vest. On his lower half, he wore a pair of red business pants and a pair of fancy leather shoes. His most interesting aspect, however, was what he wore on his head.

He wore a facemask, with holes for eyes and the mouth. It was very strange that someone should have been wearing this out in public, and with such casual clothes to go with it. Of course, underneath the mask was the face, and although he couldn't see much of it, it still unnerved him and made him shudder. It was like the eyes were staring straight into his soul and he could almost hear this man's voice in his mind, whispering darkly and mercilessly, '_I'm coming for you._'


	4. Scout (Part 3)

Scout was still staring at the small photographs, lost in his thoughts and questions, when the door suddenly burst open and in came seven rowdy, loud and clearly hyped-up teenagers who were his brothers. Their fight bruises seemed to have healed and they were all patting each other on the back and talking, obviously excited about something.

Curious, Scout got up and went over to Harvey, who was always the first to tell Scout what they were doing. "It was amazing!" He exclaimed. "We were down at the drug store, see, when this fella on a motorbike drove up and stuck this poster on the wall. It was about the baseball game comin' up, y'see, and the Johnsons were just a few feet away-"

At this point, Scout wasn't even listening anymore, because what Harvey said reminded him of something. That ball game was the one he was supposed to be playing in tomorrow, and he hadn't gotten any practice in cause he was too busy moping around about his most-likely-dead father. He slapped a hand to his forehead in annoyance and raced upstairs to get his game clothes on.

"Hey, where're y'going? I ain't finished my story yet!" Harvey called after him. "I'll listen to it some other time," Scout explained as he rushed up the steps, "but right now, I gotta get my stuff and practice!" He got to the top and headed into his bedroom and started to get dressed for practice. He expected his brothers to just mock him as he went out.

But, when he came back down, he was surprised to find that it was quite the opposite. Most of them ignored him, but a couple patted him on the back and told him to go for it. One of them even offered to walk him down to the park. He declined, but when he got to the door, he turned around and asked "Why're you fellas bein' so nice t'me?"

They stared at him for a bit, not sure what to say, until Harvey came up to him. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. "Y'know how I was sayin' that stuff 'bout the posters and the Johnsons and whatnot?"

"Yeah?"

"Well… we figured, since their lil' bro also plays baseball, an' since he's playing in the game tomorrow as well, we might've just made a small little bet with 'em."

Scout looked at them with wide eyes. "You sayin' you betted with the Johnsons that I could beat their younger brudder in the game tomorrow?"

"Well… yeah," his brother answered, and looked to his brothers for support. Instead, a couple of them kept talking while the rest dispersed into other areas of the house. Acknowledging that he wasn't getting any backup, Harvey turned back around to see the aggravated face of his younger brother.

"What if I lost, huh? Ya thought 'bout that? Or did ya freakin' morons jus' go ahead an' drag me into this?" Scout crossed his arms and waited for an answer. When Harvey raised his fist, glaring down at him, he realised what he had done. There was no time to run, so he just cowered and braced himself for the punishment.

But it never came. Confused, he looked up and saw his brother letting his arm drop limply beside him. His mouth nearly gaped open in surprise when Harvey rested both of his hands softly on Scout's shoulders and gripped them. "Scout," he began, "I know we've been asses to you in the past (that's one way of putting it, Scout thought to himself) but right now we need you to go out there an' win us that game. Not just for us, not for the bet, but for y'self."

Scout was completely dumbfounded. Was this even happening? One of his brothers was being NICE to him. Most of the time, they would just leave him alone or torment him when it took their fancy. But now, not only was his brother using nice words, he was encouraging him, telling him to go out there and do his best.

His eyes began to fill with tears of joy, but Harvey just smacked him around the face. Recoiling, Scout exclaimed "Wha- the freakin' hell wassat for?"

"So the others don' think I'm goin' all prissy."

"Oh."

With that, Harvey stood back up and began to fish around in his pocket. In half a minute, he produced some green notes from his pocket and put them into Scout's hand. "Here, there's 40 dolla's."

"What's this for?"

"I saw ya lookin' at that bat in the sport shop. Y'need somethin' to buy it with, right?"

Once again, the tears started, but he quickly wiped them away before Harvey gave him a black eye for crying. However much he cared about Scout, he wouldn't hesitate to bash him if he found out he cried.

It took him a while, but Scout rediscovered the sports shop pretty soon. It had a large neon sign with 'The Shed' in the middle and a large exterior perimeter. He clasped his hands together and did a quick prayer of hope before rushing to look inside the window. Sure enough, the bat was still there, resting in its shining display case with the '$39.99' price tag slapped on.

Without wasting time, he dashed through the double doors and stopped almost instantly as he took in the vast amount of sports-related equipment and objects he saw before him.

There were aisles stretching for what seemed like miles as the true vastness of the store opened up in front of him. There were shelves filled with mouthguards and helmets, whole cabinets full of basketballs and cricket bats.

Lost in his wonder, he advanced further into the store. He passed aisles containing climbing glove and baseball gloves. He spotted racing helmets and badminton rackets mixed in with running shoes and tennis balls. He kept wandering, amazed at the large amount of equipment that this store had to offer.

Getting more intrigued by the second, he grabbed a baseball helmet and slapped it onto his head, tapping his knuckles against it to see if it was as sturdy as it looked. Satisfied it was so, he put it back on the bench and headed over to the camping aisle. There he found a long-range headset made by Mann Co. (which wasn't very surprising, as Mann Co. made a fair share of military and cosmetic items) and a plain black baseball cap. Trying these on both at once made him look pretty awesome, he reckoned.

As he was checking himself out, his eye caught a sign hanging down from the ceiling suspended above one of the aisles. On closer inspection, it read "BASEBALL! All your baseball needs from balls to bats!"

"Bats!" Scout slapped his forehead in frustration with himself for being such a dumbass and quickly put the headset and cap down before heading back to the front of the store. Along the way, he noticed people piling out; the shop would be closing soon. Picking up his pace, he walked out of an aisle and found himself right next to the counter.

He glanced over at the display and was relieved to see no-one had bought the shining aluminium bat yet. Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked over and placed his hand around the handle just before someone else did the same.

Startled, he looked up and found himself staring into the glaring eyes of Wallace 'Scout' Johnson.

**AN: Thanks for 500 views! Sorry this has taken a while, but I was working on... other... things...**

**Anyway, glad to see people are enjoying this so far! Feel free to suggest to me any ways I could improve the story or things you would like to see for the other class stories. Again, thanks!**


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